What does it take to be a professional trader? Even if you’ve done well in school and your professional career, making the switch to day trading or trying to earn supplementary income is no easy task. It’s tempting to look at a bunch of day trading courses and software to expedite the process. Are any trading courses really worth it? We’ve seen dozens of people who say they’ve spent thousands of dollars pursuing the trading dream. To competently play a musical instrument, studying the instrument will only get you so far. You need to spend time playing, “hearing” your mistakes, and repeating until you can improvise. No course will teach you that because you must put in some time to gain experience.

What sets DayTradeToWin apart from most trading schools is that their programs are centered around the trading experience. They encourage downloading a trading platform and applying a real-time data feed. The idea is to replicate a live trading environment as much as possible. Using a simulated account, you can track your performance. There is no true way to replicate the live account experience, but NinjaTrader makes a solid effort.

Professional Trader Concerns in Early 2019

Right now, we’re seeing the E-mini S&P 500 market recover from a considerable period of bearish activity during December 2018. All the traders are asking, are we in a steady reversal period of bullish activity? So far, so good. The bullish activity has been fairly consistent thus far. Of course, futures traders can make (and lose) money in both up and down markets. What most traders dislike is choppy activity, where the market cannot make up its mind and appears more random than normal.

Speaking of unpredictability, your trading research may have produced articles discussing how AI trading systems manipulate the market to trick average Joe traders into placing losing trades. Heading into 2019, we have no reason to believe that these extremely fast trading systems will be any less impactful. Perhaps now is the best time to distinguish yourself from the heard and take a look at how sticking to specific rules can keep you on the same path. Take a look at these trading courses.

Are you considering becoming a professional trader as a career? Then read on to get clarification to common misconceptions.

When the average person thinks “day trading” they think about trading stocks. Trading stocks requires around $25,000 USD. This is often called the PDT (Pattern Day Trader) rule. This amount is the minimum equity on any day that you trade. If you make an average or modest U.S. income, that cost is quite the hurdle! It is rather difficult to invest in markets that are inherently uncertain.

In comparison, futures are also regulated by U.S. federal agencies. Many traders start futures trading accounts with a couple thousand dollars. Although consecutive losses can drain these accounts, infusing a couple more thousand can help create an account-busting buffer against consecutive or significant loss.

Cryptocurrency trading (often called “crypto trading”) is appealing due to the small transaction fees, 24/7 market access, and few stipulations. However, many big investment advisors and cryptocurrency experts have said that crypto markets should not be traded. They claim the value of these systems is actually the underlying technology in which digital currency is exchanged, validated, and logged. You have probably seen news reports that discuss the unpredictability of Bitcoin. When it falls, it falls! Another appeal of crypto trading is the low cost barrier. If you are getting into trading because you have $500 to trade with, you will probably have to reduce your profit and loss potential. It may take a while before any sizable profits stack up.

Professional Trader Careers

Then there are the career trading professionals. These are people with degrees in finance, mathematics, computer science, engineering, etc. People with such degrees may have a better chance of guaranteed success applying their professional skills in a traditional career path. Why risk devoting your career to a highly competitive firm that rewards the top of the top? If your skills are that good, maybe you would have also been successful figuring out how to trade on your own, so what does the hedge fund really get you? Create your own or become a bazillionaire with your amazing skills.

Many traders start with at-home futures trading because the costs are reasonable and you can practice at your leisure. The NinjaTrader trading software allows for simulated day trading off-hours. In the event you have access to a computer during U.S. morning hours, you can use the platform with a real-time practice data feed to really hone your skills. Are you interested in learning more? Drop us a comment and we’ll set you up!

The CME’s (Chicago Mercantile Exchange) calendar can be a bit confusing. Do you know what the Thanksgiving trading hours will be? Thanksgiving Day, a major U.S. holiday, is November 22, 2018. The E-mini S&P 500 (ES) and other CME equity products (markets) will close early on Thursday and Friday at 1:00 p.m. ET and 1:15 p.m., respectively. Get more details via the CME calendar (Excel files) or this consolidated version:

Have you traded around holidays or during half-days before? Watch out for slow or erratic activity. Big market movers and automated systems may not be as active. Apply an ATR (Average True Range) with a period value of four to get a more realistic view of current volatility levels.

Tech Stocks in Trouble?

As we proceed into the final weeks of the final quarter of 2018, the markets are temperamental. In recent days, news outlets have covered the fallibility of tech stocks, particularly Apple, which saw a significant fall around Nov. 19, 2018. Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg appears to be the subject of much controversy, with his leadership competence in question as well as the platform’s privacy controls. Jeff Bezos, Amazon CEO, said within the last week or so that Amazon will fail one day. Do you agree with analysts that say Amazon is a better long-term investment than Google, Apple, or Facebook? As we move into the final weeks of 2018 with holiday shopping intensifying, we will see if there are any more “leaks” with real or perceived pressure.

December Trading Reminders

If you trade the E-mini or similar CME equity indexes, note the Dec. 13, 2018 roll date. On that day or soon after, roll over your futures contracts to 03-19. Otherwise, you will see your charts “dry up.” And of course, expect further market closures later in the month due to Christmas.

Did you see the January Effect video from earlier this year? The January Effect is a forecasting strategy for predicting overall E-mini price movement for the entire year. In short, if price loses higher than it opens in January, price will be higher at the end of December. During the year, you can look to swing trade multiple times. These setups occur when price retraces from towards previous highs. The idea is to get in halfway. Use your trading platform’s Fibonacci tool to see a halfway point. We configure the tool in NinjaTrader to only show 0%, 50%, and 100% levels.

If you switch to a daily chart, you can get a better idea of price activity so far. Since April 2018, we’ve seen price continue to climb higher with some excellent opportunities to swing trade. In the video (specifically 3:28), you can see an example of the Fibonacci tool being used to identify such trades. A swing trade can open you up to more risk because you’re holding positions for longer than intraday. Therefore, not all traders can swing trade. Your broker and account funding must be compatible. And of course, there is no guarantee the January Effect will be accurate or that a retracement will not suddenly turn against you.

Swing Trade Techniques

Do you think price will indeed close higher in December of this year? Have you gone back to see if 2017 and 2016 January Effect were correct? Do you think you can predict trending days in advance with high probability? We will post another video in a few months one way or another. At the time of writing, only four months remain in 2018.

Did you see yesterday’s ATO 2 and Atlas Line signals? Here’s another example of how one trading system can work with another. The Atlas Line and ATO 2 once again agreed that “long” was the way to go. Both signals appeared around 10 a.m. EDT. The signals appear upon bar close. That means you have a little bit of time to place a trade. The included live training and training video cover what type of order to place. As you probably saw from yesterday’s video, marker orders can work just fine.

Some traders may consider the E-mini’s Aug. 2 activity to be a trending day. Trending days, though considered easier to trade, are not very common. Choppy days or days where short periods of upward and downward movement occur are much more common. Overall, a good trading system should be able to catch more winning than losing trades.

The video spends a bit of time reviewing how to add indicators to your chart. By default, NinjaTrader comes with many indicators. If you bought and installed the ATO 2 and Atlas Line, you will see it on the indicator list. Otherwise, you can practice with some of the free indicators. We use the ATR and Bar Timer most often.

Once an indicator is imported, it’s a good idea to save the original .zip file. We encourage our clients to put all of our “DTTW” indicators in a folder for safekeeping. In case a new computer is purchased, it’s easy to transfer over the files for importing into a new NinjaTrader installation.

If you are unable to trade during the first 2.5 hours of the trading day (9:30 a.m. to noon, EDT), then you may want to use the Market Replay (also called Playback Connection) feature. You can download and play back historical price data and practice trade as though your charts are live.

If you want to learn more about each trading system, visit the official ATO 2 and Atlas Line pages.

We like when at least two day trading strategies provide similar signals. We consider this confirmation of expected market direction. That’s what happened today, Aug. 1, 2018 with the ATO 2 and Atlas Line trading systems from DayTradeToWin.com. The trade in the video was actually taken as a result of the Atlas Line signal at 10:20 a.m. EDT when the E-mini’s price reached 2822.75 on bar close. This two-point E-mini winner was worth $100 (before any broker or exchange fees) when trading with one contract. Most pro traders use two or more contracts, which would have at least doubled the profit. Keep in mind that losses do and will occur, so only trade with money set aside for high-risk investments.

A market buy order was used. That’s probably the most simple type of order a trader can place. It says “get me in long now” to the trading platform. The actual fill price can differ a bit because of timing. Remember, markets are almost always fluctuating. By default, NinjaTrader bases its markets off of the last price, not the bid or ask price.

What are those red and green lines? That’s the profit target and stop loss. The profit target says to the market, “Close out the trade if this price is reached. I would like this much profit.” Similarly, the stop loss says, “Get me out here if things turn ugly. I am okay with losing this amount on this trade.” Of course, if you want to get out of a trade early with a smaller profit, loss, or exit at breakeven, you can do that, too. That’s what the close button is for. Also, be sure to turn on Chart Trader on the chart to see the red and green lines.

It’s possible to change your profit target and stop loss while in a trade. Keep in mind that in doing so, you’re placing new orders (which are processed in the order they’re received). You’ll be at the back of the line, so you may not get filled as soon as you’d like.

In terms of a general day trading strategy, using the same stop loss and profit target setup all the time is probably not a good idea. We believe that it’s best to be flexible. During faster conditions, we’ll tend to use a larger profit target and stop loss. During slower conditions, we’ll user smaller profit targets and stops. If the market is too slow or too fast to trade, we won’t trade at all. We have clear rules on this that we can teach you. We think it’s best to by dynamic and follow what the price action is “saying.”

A Simple Day Trading Strategy Setup

NinjaTrader has a cool featured called “ATM Strategy” that lets you predefine profit target and stop loss values in advance. You can preconfigure a bunch of them based on what you’ll think you’ll need to use regularly. The trader in this video used one that has a profit target of 2 and a stop loss of 4, as that is pretty compatible with using the Atlas Line with the E-mini. If you were using a scalping method, you would probably use smaller values.

The ATO 2 and Atlas Line let you configure a sound to play when a signal appears. This is helpful because if your multitasking, it’s easy to hear an audio alert, go back to NinjaTrader, place a trade, monitor it, and hopefully get out with a profit, then get back to what you were doing.

NinjaTrader is free for paper trading. If you need help getting set up, send an email to [email protected] You can request the free download and connection information via the DayTradeToWin Simulator page. The ATO 2 is almost finished for the MetaTrader platform. You can also send an email to get setup information for MetaTrader.

The content at this site was created by DayTradeToWin or its affiliates. The author(s) may have been directly or indirectly compensated for the content. All content should be should be treated as an advertisement. Trading is inherently risky and substantial financial loss can occur. Hypothetical performance is not indicative of future results. Results may vary due to the unpredictable nature of the markets, slippage, user behavior, geographical distance to data centers, and other factors.

CFTC RULE 4.41 – HYPOTHETICAL OR SIMULATED PERFORMANCE RESULTS HAVE CERTAIN LIMITATIONS. UNLIKE AN ACTUAL PERFORMANCE RECORD, SIMULATED RESULTS DO NOT REPRESENT ACTUAL TRADING. ALSO, SINCE THE TRADES HAVE NOT BEEN EXECUTED, THE RESULTS MAY HAVE UNDER-OR-OVER COMPENSATED FOR THE IMPACT, IF ANY, OF CERTAIN MARKET FACTORS, SUCH AS LACK OF LIQUIDITY. SIMULATED TRADING PROGRAMS IN GENERAL ARE ALSO SUBJECT TO THE FACT THAT THEY ARE DESIGNED WITH THE BENEFIT OF HINDSIGHT. NO REPRESENTATION IS BEING MADE THAT ANY ACCOUNT WILL OR IS LIKELY TO ACHIEVE PROFIT OR LOSSES SIMILAR TO THOSE SHOWN.

GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS REQUIRE DISCLOSURE OF THE FACT THAT WHILE THESE METHODS MAY HAVE WORKED IN THE PAST, PAST RESULTS ARE NOT NECESSARILY INDICATIVE OF FUTURE RESULTS. WHILE THERE IS A POTENTIAL FOR PROFITS THERE IS ALSO A RISK OF LOSS. A LOSS INCURRED IN CONNECTION WITH TRADING FUTURES CONTRACTS CAN BE SIGNIFICANT. YOU SHOULD THEREFORE CAREFULLY CONSIDER WHETHER SUCH TRADING IS SUITABLE FOR YOU IN LIGHT OF YOUR FINANCIAL CONDITION SINCE ALL SPECULATIVE TRADING IS INHERENTLY RISKY AND SHOULD ONLY BE UNDERTAKEN BY INDIVIDUALS WITH ADEQUATE RISK CAPITAL.

ANY ADVISORY OR SIGNAL GENERATED BY DAY TRADE TO WIN IS PROVIDED FOR EDUCATIONAL PURPOSED ONLY. ANY TRADES PLACED UPON RELIANCE ON WWW.DAYTRADETOWIN.COM SYSTEMS ARE TAKEN AT YOUR OWN RISK FOR YOUR OWN ACCOUNT. PAST PERFORMANCE IS NO GUARANTEE OF FUTURE RESULTS. WHILE THERE IS GREAT POTENTIAL FOR REWARD TRADING COMMODITY FUTURES, THERE IS ALSO SUBSTANTIAL RISK OF LOSS IN ALL TRADING. YOU MUST DECIDE YOUR OWN SUITABILITY TO TRADE OR NOT. FUTURES RESULTS CAN NEVER BE GUARANTEED. THIS IS NOT AN OFFER TO BUY OR SELL FUTURES OR COMMODITY INTERESTS.